moonlight
by shomarus
Summary: Your name is Aranea Serket. You are five sweeps old. You have a mysterious friend named Meenah Peixes, who just so happens to be the heiress to the throne. You enjoy reading, particularly at night. Although now, you think you'd rather spend those nights looking at the moon, it's light, and Meenah Peixes' reflection. [prescratch/kinda badly written/i hate fish puns]
1. Chapter 1

Your name is ARANEA SERKET.

You sure do love to READ. In fact, you say you can't GET ENOUGH OF IT. However, you also don't really have MUCH OF A CHOICE when it comes to reading, especially because you have NO OTHER WAY TO SPEND YOUR TIME. Between gathering food for your EVER HUNGRY LUSUS and the constant REOGANIZATION of your books, you truly have nothing else to do in the hours that pass between those moments where you actually do happen to be busy.

Some trolls would say that you are a bit of a BIBLIOPHILE. You often find yourself attempting to PROTEST THAT CLAIM WEAKLY. However, you and your friends know that you are FULL OF SHIT. Namely Porrim, who ENJOYS TO TEASE YOU CONSTANTLY. Speaking of your friends, it just so happens that you DON'T HAVE VERY MANY, which goes hand in hand with the fact that you DONT HAVE VERY MANY WAYS TO SPEND YOUR TIME. You've always wanted to be popular, but trolls don't USUALLY LIKE YOU, and you're NOT QUITE SURE WHAT IT IS. You also have just realized that you are JUST A LITTLE BIT OF A PESSIMIST.

Your trolltag is articulateGraffias and you speak in an articulate manner that matches your trolltag 8eautifully, although you do think that it would 8e 8est to mention your ram8ling as well.

What will you do?


	2. Chapter 2

Your first order of business has already been taken care of. Your lusus is happy and fed, and you don't really wish to spend any longer indoors, especially when it is nighttime, and what a lovely night it is to do some reading!

Rushing out the door of your hive, you clutch a book to your chest, and you run to the ocean. You've always had a great affinity for the ocean. And after reading some particularly interesting stories about some pirates, you've always wondered if you could become one yourself. Your friend Porrim had simply laughed at you, saying you were simply too much of a goody two shoes to do such a thing. You grind your teeth at the thought. One day, you'd be a pirate, and you wouldn't give any of your precious boons to her. That would certainly show her! You huff, and sit yourself down on a pier, your shoes only barely touching the water.

Sea-dwellers begin to surface, but you don't really care about that. After all, while you are lower on the hemospectrum than they are, you're not one to be noticed very easily. Trolls don't tend to acknowledge your presence, not even land-dwellers. You begin to immerse yourself in your book. Another thriller tale about a pirate lady (of your particular caste, may you add with glee) doing amazing pirate-like stuff. You could not handle the suspense and you had already looked at the end, only to be horrified by the fact that the pirate lady was eventually killed. And yet, you continue to read the story with interest.

Unfortunately, you don't get very far until you are rudely interrupted by someone calling out to you. You look up briefly, wondering who on Beforus would call to you, but you then tinge blue. You don't know anyone here. Why would they call to you?

You raise your hand to your cheek. What a silly assumption to make! You shake off the embarrassment, and continue with your reading.

But there it is again. That boyish, gruff voice.

"I said hey! Nerd fin the blue dress! Cod, are you deaf or somefin'?" Now you're certain that the voice is calling to you. You're the only one wearing a blue dress. You pretend not to take offense to the name of "nerd". Even if it kinda stings. Only a little bit.

You glance at the one who called to you. You can only see half of the troll's face. "Ah, may I help you?" You're curious to see what a violet-blood would need from you, other than to check if you're okay, you suppose. There's no immediate response. Just grey eyes staring up at you.

"Uh. I wanna know. Water you readin. I see ya swim 'round here a lot. And you're always readin' somefin. And uh. I betta it's interestfin'." The troll's sentences are short and awkward. In a way, you figure it's kind of cute.

"... Are you saying fish puns?" You try to hold in a giggle.

"Shell yeah I am!" They boast with a laugh. You can't hold it in any longer, and you let out a round of giggling. "Pretty glubbin' impressive, I'd say."

"Yes..." You begin, unable to keep from smiling. "They're a tuna fun."

The troll's eyes light up with excitement, and suddenly, you can see the troll in front of you. Long hair, female. Incredibly happy. "Oh my cod. Tuna. Tuna tuna tuna. You said tuna!" She splashes your socks as she swims around excitedly. You hold the book out of the vicious water's way. Contrary to popular believe, you would say that ocean water is very unhealthy if you want a book to survive for long periods of time. You would not recommend it.

"Back to the original point," You say, and she snaps back to attention. "You wish to know what I'm reading, correct? Well, it's a rather interesting and dynamic tale of a female pirate who sails the 8 Seas of Alternia and manages to sink a ton of ships in the process of doing so, while also managing to get tangled up in quadrants along the way, because what is a truly good story if there is no quadrant ridicu-" She cuts you off with a splash of water, and you squeak in protest.

"You tend to glub a lot, you know that?" She says, pursing her lips, and you frown a little bit.

Huffing, you turn your head to the side. "Well, you're the one who wanted to know!"

"Gimme the short version! Glub no more than ten words."

You peek at her. "No. There's no possible way you can simply tell such an epic and tear jerking tale in a singular sentence!"

The troll rolls her eyes, and you can practically feel the dread. "Whale, if you're gonna glub so much, why dontcha just read the story to me instead?" You promptly decide that this is a sound plan, and you open the book to the very first page. She makes herself comfortable, laying on top of the water.

"'My name is Marquise Spinneret Mindfang,'" You begin. She listens intently. You begin to spin the story of the Marquise, a pirate who plundered for many treasures, someone who suffered due to the quadrants, someone who used her mind powers to commit nefarious deeds, deeds that would get one expelled from Beforus (but you guessed it was fine, since Alternia appeared to be just as ficticious as this entire story). By the time you've finished a month of her journal, the words fall off your lips, and you hear her exhale. The moon has made it's way from behind you to behind her, and you close the book while in awe. You're only 5 sweeps old, you shouldn't be involving yourself with quadrants this early. But you do notice that she's very pretty."I do believe that it would be best for the both of us if we were to retreat to our hives rather quickly. The sun will come up soon, and I live quite a ways away from here."

She submerges herself in the water again. "... Hey, do ya think we could, uh. Do somefin' like this again? Maybe tomorrow? I, um. Enjoyed this." You nod your head, and grin.

"Dolphinately." She squeals, and you laugh. It has only just occurred to you that you do not know the name of this troll, and a sudden inkling to find out washes over you. "Ah, by the way, my name is Aranea Serket."

"Serket, eh? Well, Serks, my name is Meenah." You nod your head, although you can't say you quite enjoy the way that Meenah uses your surname the way she does. You don't protest. "I'll sea ya tomorrow then!" And with that, she dives back into the ocean, leaving you to watch as her figure gets darker and darker. You blink. You get up. You stare at the water.

Meenah. A rather nice name, if you had any say. You begin to walk back to your place. The sea-dwellers are beginning to retreat back underwater anyways. You allow yourself a small grin, and decide to forage for some extra grub for your lusus. After all, you're in a positive mood, and you would hate for it to be ruined. Your grin turns into a smile, and you rush back to your hive.

You're looking forward to tomorrow night. You make a mental note to think up of many fish puns to impress Meenah with.

You don't even mind that your socks are still damp.

* * *

"Yo, Serks. Can I tell ya somefin reely seacret like?" Your ears pipe up out of curiosity. This is your eighth meeting with Meenah, and you've almost finished the story. And truthfully, after this, you didn't quite feel like reading another story to Meenah for a while, not until you got to know her a little better.

Of course you let her talk while you allowed your throat to rest (it's not like all that reading didn't make your throat dry, and there was no way you were drinking any of that seawater!), but you just wanted to, well... Talk. Be with Meenah. "Yes, Meenah? Go ahead, I'm all earfins."

You smile. She doesn't.

In fact, she seems a bit reluctant. "Whale, uh. Ya know how ya think I'm a violet-blood n' stuff?" You eye her suspiciously. Then it comes to you.

"Ah, are you just an indigo-blood who wishes to be a sea-dweller?" It was a truly dumb assumption of you to make, you knew that. But it was possible, perhaps? Meenah's ears were always covered by the copious amounts of hair she had, and it was thick and always wet. You can't stop yourself from attempting to sneak a peak at her ears, to no avail. Perhaps one day you'd braid Meenah's hair. You've braided your own hair before, before you realized that you hated how long it was and preferred it short.

"No, I'm not, Serks." She rolls her eyes."Don't sweat it though. It's just. Um."

You really just want her to say it, but at the same time, you know it's rude to pressure people.

Empress.

Oh. Oh dear.

Ooooooooh dear. "You're the heiress."It's not a question. "I'm friends with the heiress."

"Cod Serket, please don't repeat that out loud! The Empress doesn't know I meetcha and stuff! If Cronus hears about this, he's gonna spill it to her and then she's gonna krill me!" You nod. "Besides... I don't wanna have to deal with ya treatin' me different because my blood is pink n stuff."

To that, you shake your head."Oh, Meenah no! I wouldn't treat you different just because our blood is different, that's silly!"

She stared at you for a moment. Then she smiles. "... Right. It's a miracle that you don't think I'm shit right now." To yourself, and briefly, you wonder why anyone thought that. But then again, you figure that Meenah doesn't have very many friends. In the same way that you don't.

Perhaps that is why you two get along so well.

"Though I do have to wonder why you're spending your time with me!"

"That's what I wanna know too, you'd think that there's a lotta fish in the sea, so much that'd I'd be able to find a less chatty friend." Pretending to be offended, you gently kick water at her."I'm a sea-dweller, you dope, that doesn't bother me!" You roll your eyes, and push up your glasses.

You let the silence wash over you. "That was nice. Should I finish the story, perhaps?" She nods, and you open the book up once again. The story begins to heat up, and while you yourself found the flushed romance between the Summoner and the Marquise to be a little disgusting, Meenah ate it up with a shark-toothed grin.

Actually, now that you think about it, Meenah enjoyed any kind of quadrant business that came up in this book. Perhaps that was just because she enjoyed petty gossip, or something to that degree.

You reach the death of the Marquise, and Meenah is just as horrified as you were. Well, you wouldn't say that, she's not as horrified as you were. You were much more upset, Meenah is just mildly disheartened by it. What could you do, though? You close book, and stare into Meenah's eyes

"Do you ever think I could be a pirate?"Perhaps it was a dumb conversation starter. And it proved to be just that a few moments later when Meenah began to laugh heartily. You expect to be hit with the same words Porrim said to you, although you're much less likely to feel upset because of it. To your surprise, however, Meenah does not call you a goody-two shoes.

"I think ya could do it!" You cock your eyebrow at her, as if to say 'really'? And she nods. "Yeah! You can be Mindfang, and I'll be, whale, the Condesce because shell yes, I wanna be that epic." You do not tell Meenah that you think the idea of her idolizing Her Imperial Condescension is the best thing she's ever thought up of while in your presence. She purses her lips. "Ya know what, Cronus Damnpora could probubbly be that Dualscar dude."

You nod. "Oh, my friend Porrim would probably be the Dolorosa then!" You then shake your head. "I don't really wish to entertain the thought of me getting flushed with her, nor do I quite want her to die either."

Meenah grins. "Yeah, it'd suck if your friends were to die, eh? Though I can't say I'd reely mind Cronus getting his bass handed to him." You shake your head. You think that the murder of other trolls is highly unnecessary, unless it is for a good cause. You don't think that Meenah's problem with Cronus warrants any sort of death.

Oh, cod. The sun's starting to rise up.

"I should get going, the sun is beginning to rise and I don't quite want to get attacked by my lusus, nor do I fancy the thought of being burnt to a shrill crisp, I don't think that would do well for out nightly mee-" You get splashed with water.

"Go, Serks, damn. You'd be halfway home already if ya didn't have such a big mouth. Clam up sometimes, gurl!" She grins. You stick your tongue out at her.

"I'll see you tommorow, then?"

She nods. "Yeah, like always. Anyways, s'time to go, don't want you to dry out in the sun like a fish outta water!"

"Sounds good."

And then she's gone. You watch the ripples dissipate, and you smile to yourself. You think to yourself on the way home, reminding yourself at various intervals to not look at the sun.

Hanging out with Meenah. It made you feel nice and at ease. She would probably say that it was incredibubble, and you would be inclined to agree.


End file.
